president with something he's never said before or if he wants to save that stuff for a more controlled environment. that will tell us as much about his temperament and his strategy as it will about his plans. let me bring in lawrence o'donnell, chris. lawrence is in the spin room tonight, which i think has yet to begin to spin. lawrence, what do you think the expectations are on both sides tonight? >> reporter: well, rachel, in this room, there are a lot of $10,000 bets going on behind me about what the president is going to say tonight and what mitt romney is going to say tonight. i think the rules actually favor president obama because there are almost no rules. they are going to do two-minute statements, they're each going to get two minutes at the beginning of the subjects that jim leherer will introduce. and discussing not policing 30-second rebuttals and 60-second statements. none of that red light stuff with the clocks and all of that stuff. and when you're in mitt romney's position, where he's actually trying to hide some things, trying to hide the details of the deduction side of his tax